Polyethylene is an important industrial polymer commonly used in packaging. One method for producing polyethylene is through methane oxidative coupling. During this process, methane can be separated from ethylene in the gas phase; however, this separation is a high energy consuming process requiring cryogenic cooling and compression-decompression cycles to achieve the necessary separation conditions of high pressure and low temperature. Further, methane oxidative coupling can have a relatively low methane conversion, rendering the process uneconomical.
Thus, there remains a need in the art for techniques for producing polyethylene that does not require the costly separation of unreacted methane from ethylene.